s arrival. The supplies that would
all have disappeared in November were thus eked out, first till the
middle of December, and then finally till the end of January, but
there is no doubt that they would not have lasted as long as they did
if in the last month of the siege he had not given the civil
population permission to leave the doomed town. From any and from
every point of view, there was not the shadow of an excuse for a
moment's delay after the receipt of that letter on 14th November.

With the British Exchequer at a commander's back, it is easy to
organise an expedition on an elaborate scale, and to carry it out with
the nicety of perfection, but for the realisation of these ponderous
plans there is one thing more necessary, and that is time. I have no
doubt if Gordon's letter had said "granaries full, can hold out till
Easter," that Lord Wolseley's deliberate march--Cairo, September 27;
Wady Halfa, October 8; Dongola, November 14; Korti, December 30;
Metemmah any day in February, and Khartoum, March 3, and those were
the approximate dates of his grand plan of campaign--would have been
fully successful, and held up for admiration as a model of skill.
Unfortunately, it would not do for the occasion, as Gordon was on the
verge of starvation and in desperate straits when the rescuing force
reached Dongola. It is not easy to alter the plan of any campaign, nor
to adapt a heavy moving machine to the work suitable for a light one.
To feed 10,000 British soldiers on the middle Nile was alone a feat of
organisation such as no other country could have attempted, but the
effort was exhausting, and left no reserve energy to despatch that
quick-moving battalion which could have reached Gordon's steamers
early in December, and would have reinforced the Khartoum garrison,
just as Havelock and Outram did the Lucknow Residency.

Dongola is only 100 miles below Debbeh, where the intelligence
officers and a small force were on that 14th November; Ambukol,
specially recommended by Gordon as the best starting-point, is less
than fifty miles, and Korti, the point selected by Lord Wolseley, is
exactly that distance above Debbeh. The Bayuda desert route by the
Jakdul Wells to Metemmah is 170 miles. At Metemmah were the five
steamers with nine guns to convoy the desperately needed succour to
Khartoum. The energy expended on the despatch of 10,000 men up 150
miles of river, if concentrated on 1000 men, must have given a
speedier resul